We are relocating and have a debate raging within Planning and Design. Some say that an “Open Office” design inspires collaboration, and others insist that workstations are more productive because there are fewer distractions. In all of this debate no one has considered which design would prove superior in a predicted Zombie Apocalypse. Is there information available on this?

-          Wary

Unfortunately Wary, there is a great deal of information published regarding the general health risks posed by zombies, but scant data on planning for zombies in the commercial office. For instance, the Centers for Disease Control has a site called Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse, which is a wealth of information on surviving in public and domestic spaces, but discloses no useful studies on zombie perils in the workplace.

Additional investigation of publications from the University of Glasgow’s Zombie Institute for Theoretical Studies, which has been doing pioneering work in Zombiology since 1979, reveals that most research at ZITS to date is centered on physiology and epidemiology rather than laying out office furniture.

So, undeterred by a lack of useful data, it is appropriate to infer from studies on zombie behavior, how groups of zombies would behave upon getting off the elevator on your floor. First, consider the image below of an informal collaborative workplace, and imagine zombie’s reaction to this tableau behind the now deserted reception desk:

The tired idiom “low-hanging fruit” is unnervingly appropriate for this design.

Now consider this next example:

A thwarted stand-in “zombie” is stumped by this otherwise ridiculous design.

The solution lies somwhere in between. Just stick to more practical solutions Wary, such as higher panels at the building core and lobby areas, and a bewildering layout behind. These two simple steps will afford staff additional time to exit through darkened stairwells, and out narrow, blind alleys.

A final note; if the conditions “undead” or “walking dead” become legislated as disabilities, compliments of the zombie lobby, then workplace ADA compliance will become certain suicide – so contact your Congress Human today.

“Vexing minions hauling the blimp from its hanger Sunday”

“We’re off!” 

“They all laughed back at the University….”

-          Dr. Annoying

You’re “off” all right Doc. That blimp stands out like Pez Dispenser on a plate of Scrapple, we’re already getting confirmed sightings on the East Coast. Plus, one of your ”vexing” stooges left a winning lottery ticket on the floor of the hanger – and we’re cashing it. Ha!

We’ll get our blimp back, and “Dr. Annoying” will be famous for the dumbest prank ever!

I read a number of your blog posts and I think all you are doing is making up outrageous questions, then fabricating completely bogus answers. And your photographs are obvious Photoshop frauds. It seems to me that you should be running for president; at least then we could be sure there wasn’t a shred of truth in your ridiculous rants.

-          Disgusted

My Disgusted friend, I am simultaneously awed by your independent thinking, and am in profound admiration of your unflinching eye for the truth. Your conviction embodies the duty of every American – to examine what we see and hear, sift the wheat from the chaff, and bake the tender kernels into the Unleavened Loaf of Truth.

Coincidentally, these concepts are the very bones of the Re-form Party. Though we are running a wildly independent, dark-horse candidate, the watchful eyes of our SwiftCube Veterans for Truth hold us to the same high standards as all presidential candidates.

Recent Re-form Party Rally

I am a Mountaineering entrepreneur that routinely puts together climbing packages for the busy Professional, and am facing mounting competition from other outfitters that cater to the Professional who can’t afford to “leave the office behind”. To wit, my concern; I’m looking for a company that can equip and supply a fully business-operational workstation at the various mountain camp elevations. These would typically start at 18,000′, but would also require installation of workstations at and above the so-called “death-zone”; camps above 24,000′.

-          High in the Himalayas

Re-form has done extensive R&D on Extreme Workstationing High guy, as evidenced by how we added an “ing” to the end of the word “workstation”. Here is what we found:

Both the hearty Russian Mi-17’s that supply base camps at 5000’, and the Steelcase Avenir workstation are real beasts, and used Avenir is very competitively priced! Like all extreme workstations, they are staged fully assembled as shown below:

Farther up the mountain, we have found the intrepid Action Office workstation to be the best all-around choice for both higher altitude clerical work and professional collaboration. These are a little more expensive, but all the connectors are extruded aluminum and are light, further we found they won’t break in sub-zero temperatures like the plastic hinges used many other workstations.

Though they are indeed lighter, we have experienced Sherpa complaints carrying 8×8 managerial workstations past 10,000’. Persevere, but stick with 6×6 stations. A tip if you hear too much whining – the Re-form Person  found their complaints to be somewhat disingenuous as he witnessed them happily riding heavy worksurfaces down the mountain when climbers were not looking!

Farther up the mountain than 18,000’, there is no better choice than Resolve, though we have not figured out how to keep the fabric elements from tearing in the wind. An Aeron chair retrofitted with an oxygen bottle is a must in the Death Zone!

No way am I losing it, Re-form dude. Check out this picture and tell me that’s not a ghost in my work station. Is this totally weird?  And how do I lose this PIA?

-          Tormented

You nailed it Tormented, you share a workstation with the latest trend in virtual employment. Recently corporate staffers found that, while mortal virtual employees are cheaper and more flexible than old fashioned employees, they still require a living wage. How recruiters are able to find qualified phantasms, and HR is able to retain them is not clear, but these pesky poltergeists are here to stay. So if you do manage to run that ghost off, expect a black mark in your personnel folder.

I’ve been thinking about a career change, and am drawn to office furniture remanufacturing like a moth to flame. I see you people on TV – partying with movie stars, driving fancy cars, generally living a life most people only dream of. I’d really like to get a piece of this, how do I do it?

-          Star-struck

What you say is certainly true Star-struck, our lifestyle puts the Wall Street Robber Barons to shame. But what most people don’t comprehend is the rigorous academic, physical and spiritual training that every man and woman in this industry endures to get where we are. The elite few that make the cut to the Robert Probst School of Cubes spend years with their nose to the grindstone. At the same time they undergogrueling physical training, and finally, spiritual preparation in Tibet. Are you sure you have what it takes to make the grade?

Left:  physical training student washes out of the lateral file toss.

Right:  tomorrow’s spiritual leaders of the Used Office Furniture Industry.

Our company is in an aggressive growth mode, and just gobbled up another organization. I can’t tell you the name of our company, but we are known for buying hot, fast-growth startups and turning them around.

Anyway, our acquisition team closed this deal without spending time inspecting the facility, so no one has had a chance to inventory the furniture, but I do have this photograph. Could you look it over and tell me what system it is? I’ll need to be able to reconfigure it, and will certainly need access to additional components. When we bought the company the sellers said it was Herman Miller Resolve, what do you think?

-          Global Dominator

What you seem to have purchased, Dominator, is furniture that certainly looks like an early version of Resolve – but is by no means the earliest!

It may sound surprising, but the origins of Resolve actually predate the Herman Miller Action Office system by nearly 2000 years. As far back as the year 449, Attila the Hun was perfecting the first known version in preparation for his invasion of the Visigoths. Like the modern version, it was a quickly reconfigurable modular system, allowing it to be transported and deployed behind a fast moving army. Unfortunately, R&D ceased in stunning upset of the Huns by the Visigoths and Romans in the spring of 450. Genghis Kahn resumed development of the system in 1199, and a stylish version followed his Mongols across Asia and into Eastern Europe by 1220, leaving a trail of 40 million bodies in his wake.

Today’s generation of this festive “campaign tent” system can be found in modern office buildings world-wide – but not in the one you just bought! I hope you saved the receipt.

-          The Re-form Person

I was driving home during Hurricane Irene, and I’m almost sure I saw someone assisting the Coast Guard doing rescue work in the harbor- in a desk! I slept very little the night before, so it’s not hard to believe I was seeing things – but is this possible?

-Seen It All

You are correct SIA. What you saw was the product of an ultra-secret division of Re-form. While this team is widely ridiculed by the bulk of Re-form’s conventional commercial staff, they are doing groundbreaking work in the field of Adaptive Office Furniture Re-Use (AOFR).

Like so many other truly great innovations, this one has its origins in the field of marketing. You see, many people consider a “furniture emergency” a burned-out task light bulb or a bad gas-lift in a task chair. While Re-form takes these problems seriously and corrects them with lightning speed, exhaustive marketing studies have found that office furniture should never be thought of as the cause of an emergency. Rather, it should be considered a solution.  And, as the marketing theory goes, office furniture should be a solution to nothing less than natural disasters such as the recent hurricane, and even the last earthquake. Hence, what you saw was a desk, converted to a Rapid Response Lifesaving Vessel.

R&D for this craft was rigorous. Steelcase and Haworth both had more than serviceable desks, but for tough amphibious work we chose the plucky Meridian corner desk. And not before several failed attempts with less expensive mid-market brands. Not surprisingly, particle board units quickly absorbed water making them dangerously unstable and worse yet, left oily slicks behind them.

An earlier abortive but well intended effort was the Submersible Haworth Personal Storage Tower. Anecdotally, during a covert Coast Guard inspection of the sub two years ago, the operator was asked how deep this marvel would go – to which the hapless fellow fatefully replied, “all the way to the bottom, sir.”

While it is easy to think of this R&D as sophisticated and cutting-edge, there is evidence that these experiments are not new. For example, research of WWII narratives finds several references to aging pilots being required to “fly a desk”, which leads Re-form researchers to believe that it might not be as dangerous as it seems. Keep your eyes to the sky SIA.

I am in charge of liquidating gently worn office furniture our firm doesn’t want anymore, and I’m not having a lot of luck with buyers. The picture below shows the desks and files, but it was taken in a hurry and I can’t tell what kind they are. Is this something you would be interested in buying? If not, can you tell me what to do with it?

-          Hot Foot

Looks like your lease has run out Hot Foot! I hate to sound discouraging, but a recent IFMA study found that half of all office administrators assigned to relocations such as yours either quit or took an extended leave of absence at the end of the move. You might want to keep running.

To answer your question, I’m not sure we are interested in buying your “gently used” office furniture at this point in time. I think what we are looking at here is a full-on recycling project, so I’ll give you my best advice from our own experience.

Highest on your list of green options would be a donation, but I think even Mother Theresa might tell you to pound sand with this one. The only real environmentally responsible option you have is to sort it yourself and send it to recycling facilities, or contact a LEED recycling facility that will sort it for you.  The metal is easy to get rid of and might even be worth a small amount of cash, but the rest is a little more complicated.

Unprocessed wood products can be ground up and dyed to make mulch, but laminate furniture has to be landfilled, as the adhesives and plastic contaminate the mulch. Though they might be GreenGuard certified, the laminate goods are either burned in incinerators or landfilled with municipal waste.

Seating is even more complicated than that. Household plastics are all labeled with recycling information, but currently few manufacturers label office furniture with this information. Thankfully, BIFMA has created a new sustainability standard for the office furniture industry called Level that specifies, among other things, that office furniture manufacturers label furniture components with material types for the purpose of recycling. Aside from separating the metal parts, most unusable ergonomic seating goes to the dump despite manufacturer’s claims that the parts are recyclable.

The good news is that it looks like you have most of the stuff moved to the street already! Did that guy crawling on the floor ever find his contacts?

Our company anticipates needing (150) Haworth or Herman Miller 6×8 workstations and we are exploring used office furniture as an option. When I mentioned to our new furniture dealer that we would be getting a bid from Re-form, he looked ashen. I’ve worked with this guy before and trust him, but when I asked him why he looked like he just swallowed his hamster, he replied that I really shouldn’t call Re-form,” because the company was started by two guys who met in prison, and when they got out they got all their ex-convict friends together and started Re-form”. He even said that they call it Re-form because it reminded them of prison.  Is this true?

-          Trepid, Germantown MD

Whoa Trepid!

What a great story! But though the Re-form Person almost wishes it were true, the sad fact is that Re-form was incorporated in 1986 by two brothers, both recent college graduates who couldn’t find real jobs. An exhaustive background check reveals that neither was ever jailed, although each brother maintains to this day that the other was left on their parent’s doorstep by the Police as an infant. But the idea of a used furniture shop run by criminals is not without basis in recent history. Al Capone carried a business card that noted his profession as a “Used Furniture Dealer”, and he maintained a “shop” next door to mobster Johnny Torrio’s Four Deuces Hotel at 2224 South Wabash in Chicago.

With regard to the two brother’s alleged jailhouse buddies;  be assured that even though the state and federal prison systems have excellent training facilities for remanufactured office furniture, Re-form employees come from more conventional walks of life. Ironically though, some early Re-form experiments in staffing include the well-intended but regrettable plan to hire the Amish to remanufacture workstations. While the workmanship was impeccable, it was not unusual for Re-form to miss deadlines by months due to a lack of electric power and automation.

In a subsequent calamitous and nearly deadly overcorrection, the brothers invested in formidable Czechoslovakian špalku robots, originally designed to remove machinery from Soviet-era factories. Wisely Trepid, Re-form now employs (40) skilled tradespeople that you would be proud to take home to your mother. Especially if she got you from the police.